NFT Collection The Superlative Secret Society Price, Stats, and Review
Can BRICS Win from Trump’s Tariffs?
Shiba Inu: 787T SHIB held by LTHs despite recent losses – Here’s why
Maltese Regulators Fine Crypto Exchange OKX for AML Violations
Decentralized exchanges gain ground despite $6M Hyperliquid exploit
XRP Will Explode—and This Korean Expert Says He’ll Be ‘Laughing’
Stellar price could rise as transactions, stablecoin market cap jumps
Why Are Remittix (RTX) Holders Are So Confident That 10x Will Happen & Will XRP Crash As Predicted When It Does?
Robert Kiyosaki: “The biggest stock market crash of all time has begun – buy Bitcoin”
Here Is Some of The Most Important Crypto News for the Past Week (1st to 6th April)
HYPE price crashes as Hyperliquid volume plunges, dilution risks rise
Why Gamble on Shiba Inu’s Next Pump When Ozak AI’s $1 Prediction Looks More Certain?
Bitcoin Observations: Whales Point to Upcoming Market Dynamics
DOGE and SHIB are declining, this AI memecoin could be 2025’s moonshot
How much profit did TRUMP print? This new token might print more zeros
President Trump May Trigger Decorrelation Between Bitcoin and the Nasdaq, According to Macro Guru Luke Gromen
Altseason Dead On Arrival? Data Shows Bitcoin Outperforming All Categories
Stocks bleed; Bitcoin holds – How THIS divergence could send BTC to $100k
Crypto Experts Discuss the Future of Pi Coin
Tried automating crypto trades with Grok 3? Here’s what happens
Bitcoin Mining: Why Solo Miners Are Suddenly Finding Entire Blocks More Often
Report: Gen Z in Chile Is Mostly Digital and Crypto-Native
ETH Whales Find Solace in Coldware As New PayFi Layer 1 Explodes into Stage 2 Presale, 97% Completed
ETH Price Analysis: Ethereum Holders Join Coldware Presale As ETH Downward Momentum Drives Coldware Beyond $2M Raise
Ethereum vs Coldware: Which Blockchain Is More Positioned To Capture A New Retail Market, ETH Whales Join Coldware
Blockchain Soon to Self-Sovereign Control Over Our Healthcare Data?
Coinspeaker
Blockchain Soon to Self-Sovereign Control Over Our Healthcare Data?
Personal data security and privacy is a big topic these days. However, mostly due to Facebook’s ongoing scandals, the conversation tends to focus on big tech firms and how they’re harvesting and using our data. While this is a legitimate concern, we should be mindful that these days, we leave a data trail everywhere. Online privacy is important, but our online presence isn’t limited to what Facebook and Google can see.
With this in mind, it’s somewhat startling that more and more of our healthcare data is being leaked into the public domain, year after year. For example, in May this year, there were 51 breaches affecting over 2 million people in the United States alone. Many of these can be attributed to hacking and ransomware; however, in some cases, records are simply disclosed without authorization.
Furthermore, when there is a need to share healthcare data, it’s often fraught with issues and challenges, left to the patient to solve. There are no convenient means of sending data from one doctor’s office to another when someone moves home. On a broader scale, because health data is associated with our identity, researchers have no access to the vast quantities of epidemiological data that would help in drug development.
How Blockchain Can HelpWith these challenges in mind, it’s hardly surprising that healthcare organizations around the globe are enamored with the idea of blockchain. Blockchain data is secure against hackers. It’s stored on an immutable, append-only database meaning it could house a patient’s entire medical history, without any loss or manipulation of records.
Furthermore, it could provide individuals with complete access to, and control over, their own medical records. If they change doctors or want to contribute to medical research, they could use a private key to authorize access to particular sets of data. This isn’t mere speculation — BIS Research estimates that the blockchain in the healthcare market will grow at a CAGR of 63.75 percent over coming years, reaching $5.61 billion by 2025.
One challenge in implementing blockchain in healthcare is that of human resistance. The healthcare sector is inherently exposed to a large amount of risk. Mistakes can cost human lives. Therefore, technologies that sound exciting in principle can seem to be too risky to executives and managers, who would often rather wait for someone else to prove a new system can live up to the hype.
Calculating Risk for Optimal Patient OutcomesSome pioneers have faith that the potential outweighs the risk and are prepared to seize the opportunity of first-mover advantage. IBM is one example. The company has been a trailblazer for enterprise blockchain deployment across various sectors including retail and logistics, and healthcare is no different.
IBM has produced various papers which outline the use cases of blockchain in managing patient confidentiality and record sharing, ensuring transparency in clinical trial data, and securing drug supply chains.
Virtual Rehab is another example of an established healthcare company using virtual reality to help rehabilitate patients suffering from a variety of psychological conditions. The company was founded back in 2017 as a pure VR offering. Initially targeting the rehabilitation of addiction and repeat offending, the company quickly expanded due to demand and is now making its first foray into blockchain.
Amplifying Results Through Emerging TechnologiesVirtual Rehab uses a virtual reality setting to simulate a particular scene so that the individual can be monitored by their healthcare professional in that situation. Consider a drug addict, faced with a simulation of a syringe or a bottle of pills, for example.
The system has achieved runaway success, with 87 percent of patients showing improvement across various metrics. This success has earned the company various awards and accolades when it was selected as one of Canada’s Most Promising High-growth Life Sciences Companies by the Consulate General of Canada in San Francisco.
Now, it’s leveraging its existing success to incorporate the use of blockchain. Using the VRH token, patients will be able to order programs themselves from the online portal and pay for services received at a Virtual Rehab Therapy Centre.
The expansion of Virtual Rehab into blockchain is about more than just implementing a utility token. The company intends to leverage the benefits of blockchain technology to improve patient data security. Healthcare records will be stored anonymously on the blockchain, with data only attributable to a wallet address. Therefore, all data collected, such as age, gender, and biometrics, can be used by researchers without any breach of data privacy.
Dr. Raji Wahidy, CEO and Founder of Virtual Rehab, explains:
“Blockchain can further enhance existing research in the area of mental health through the global collaboration of researchers and medical professionals from around the world. Patients will also be able to access this data and identify synergies or relations with their existing symptoms and attempt to apply some best practices accordingly.”
Other companies are also using blockchain to help secure patient data and pave the way for further adoption. HealthVerity is another example. The company provides an enterprise-grade solution for managing patient records and consent. Cryptographic keys are used to enable patients to agree to their data being shared with healthcare providers, while all records are stored immutably on the blockchain.
As blockchain pioneers continue to leverage the benefits of the emerging technology for patients and for the broader medical research community, it will be intriguing to see if their move is imitated by other healthcare providers. If so, perhaps we can expect that self-sovereign medical data will become a reality sooner rather than later.
Blockchain Soon to Self-Sovereign Control Over Our Healthcare Data?